COLUMBIA, S.C. — Two Republican county officials in South Carolina have apologized after they disparaged Jews in a newspaper op-ed in support of a fiscally conservative U.S. senator.
The chairmen, Edwin Merwin Jr. and Jim Ulmer, wrote the newspaper in backing Republican Sen. Jim DeMint’s opposition to congressional earmarks.
"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," according to the piece published Sunday in The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg.
DeMint called the comment thoughtless and hurtful Tuesday, and one of South Carolina’s two Jewish legislators, Democratic state Sen. Joel Lourie, said he was outraged.
"The words of these key Republican leaders are disgusting, unconscionable and represent prejudice in its purest form," said Lourie, D-Columbia.
He initially called for the chairmen to be removed but later said it was time to move past the issue.
Dennis Prager said on his radio show today: As a Jew who has probably done more for the Jewish people than Joel Lourie, having written the most widely-used introduction to Judaism and brought tens of thousands of Jews with an increased identity with Judaism and the Jewish people, and having written hundreds of articles about Judaism, and spoken in about 400 synagogues over the course of my lifetime, and written a book on anti-Semitism which Harold Kushner says is the best book written on anti-Semitism, I think I have some credibility in saying that [Joel Lourie] is a liar, that he said these things for political gain, and used his Jewishness to crap on Republicans. I find that offensive, just as when blacks use their blackness to crap on Republicans and conservatives, hiding behind the racism charge.
"If I find it disgusting when blacks do it, I find it disgusting when fellow Jews do it. This Joel Lourie is disgusting and unconscionable and is using the terrible evil of anti-Semitism to gain political points.
"What’s unconscionable is when people advocate hurting the Jewish people. What’s unconscionable is when professor Tony Judt says there shouldn’t be a Jewish state and he gets invited by Jewish groups to speak.
"What is anti-Semitic, what is unconscionable and disgusting [about the original remark]? The whole point is that their senator James DeMint is emulating Jews who got wealthy. Is Joel Lourie arguing that Jews are not wealthy? Of course there are many poor Jews and to the Jewish community’s great credit, they take care of poor Jews through the Jewish federations and through Jews’ being extremely charitable, but the Jews…are per-capita the best-off ethnic group in America.
"What’s wrong with that? The beauty of Americans is that people don’t say wow, they’re bad, they say, why don’t we emulate them? But in the liberal’s mind, that doesn’t work. Liberals don’t like the wealthy. A liberal Democrat like this guy Joel Lourie, he thinks that as soon as you say someone’s wealthy, it’s a bad thing because t’s a bad thing to liberals because they are jealous of wealthy people even if they are wealthy.
"It’s so sick what the Left does.
"Lourie undermines the battle against real anti-Semitism by cheapening it for political gain."
A caller, Kim in Atlanta, says he’s delighted Dennis is defending the use of the stereotype of "penny-pinching Jews."
Dennis: If you want to be hyper-sensitive and retreat into the belief that people are out there to get the Jews in the most Jew-friendly country that Jews have lived in history, then live in your paranoia. I don’t share it.
This saying might come from an anti-Semitic basis, but I don’t think these two chairmen are perpetuating anti-Semitism. It is an acknowledgment that there are Jews who have attained wealth. A lot of people would like to emulate the good values Jews do. If they want to emulate it, why would they think it’s bad?
